Programs Self Funding My Ph.D To Do Risky Dissertations

It isn't controversial, but just something that isn't itself represented at my university. It is a reformulation of QFT and there are plenty of people in my department who are experts in QFT.

This jumps out at me. If there's no one at your school who's really working on the problem you want to work on, the big question is really whether anyone will be willing to supervise you on such a project in the first place. The question of funding is rather secondary to this. If a student were to come to me wanting to do a project in an area that I didn't have that much experience with or interest in, I'd be very reluctant to take that student on. Taking on a PhD student is a major commitment.

I would first find out whether you have anyone interested in supervising the project itself. If no one is, you either should look at transferring to a place where there is someone with expertise in that area or taking on a different project.

I'm a 2nd year Ph.D student and I have a pretty good idea what my topic for my dissertation is going to be. It is a very ambitious topic and doesn't fit the mold of small esoteric problems AKA " little problem that nobody ever heard of " in theoretical physics that are the topics of many dissertations. When I entered the program I was given a full stipend and scholarship. I have one more semester on a TA stipend and after that I will be on RA stipend. I'm worried that no one at my university will be willing to fund me so I can do my very ambitious project, luckily though I also have a job in finance which doesn't take much hours a week and will allow me to comfortably self fund. From your experience do you think my ability to self fund will allow me to work on my none commutative idea even if it doesn't exactly fit the mold of what is being done in the HEP section of my physics department.

Thanks

Let's get this out of the way. You may want to do anything you want. HOWEVER, a PhD research and desertion REQUIRES a faculty member to be be your academic advisor and supervise your work. This means that unless there is a faculty member who will agree to supervise your research work, then it doesn't matter who is funding you, you will not get a PhD from that school.

Many students get external funding other than from either the school, or the supervisor. Brilliant students get NSF fundings, and many international students are funded through their home institutions or countries. Having an external funding is NOT uncommon. So this has nothing to do with being able to work on a topic. In fact, many supervisors who have research funding would LOVE to have students working for them that they do not have to support. It just mean that he/she will have money to support and get more students to work on more stuff! The students who have external funding are practically working for free to these supervisors. Who does not want that?